Harrison Hansen grew up in Salford but tomorrow in the west of Sydney he will be at the centre of a World Cup game that has been billed as a Polynesian war. The 23-year-old Wigan loose-forward has been named in the Samoa team who will face Tonga at the Penrith Stadium, having opted to represent the ancestry of his father Shane and mother Natalie, who still live on the East Lancs Road having moved from Auckland to Salford when Hansen was a boy.

Hansen may be a relative newcomer to the 1,000-year-old rivalry between the two Pacific nations but Tonga's team manager and director, William Edwards, warned him yesterday to prepare for the toughest game of his life - and possibly the most brutal in the 54-year history of the rugby league World Cup.

"There's been fireworks every time we've played so I'm expecting fireworks again," said Edwards. "It is just a matter of whether we need the fire department to come and put those flames out in the form of boys in blue or officials from the World Cup. Against Samoa it's not about intelligence, it's about confrontation."

Hansen is well aware of that already. "I don't think there's any doubt it's going to be a pretty physical game," he said. "We're treating it like a local derby, although it's a bit different to Wigan v St Helens. I'll just try to stay out of the way of those big Tongan boys early on, because the coach is looking for me to play a lot of minutes. I might have to keep my head down."

Extra police have been put on stand-by in case the rivalry boils over off the field, and the teams have been asked to perform their respective hakas separately. "Ours is called the siva tau and all the boys have been working on it," Hansen said.

That will be new territory for him, and a long way from the days when he attended the same Swinton school as Ryan Giggs before going on to represent England at various schoolboy levels, including featuring in the Under-17 side captained by James Graham - now of St Helens - that claimed a ground-breaking series victory over the Australian Institute of Sport five years ago.

"But deep down I've always thought of myself as a Kiwi even though I grew up in England," he added. "I put my hand up to play for New Zealand when they played a mid-season Test against Great Britain a couple of years back, but then the Samoa coach, John Ackland, found out about my family background and asked if I'd come on board for the World Cup.

"It's the best decision I've ever made. Playing in the qualifiers last year was awesome and we've just had a week over in Samoa preparing for the World Cup. I had never been there before and my cousin took me to our village and I met up with loads of other members of the family. My dad's mother is Samoan-Chinese and my mum's family are Samoan-Scottish. It was the first time in Samoa for quite a few of the other boys, too, and that trip has strengthened the bonds we already had as a group. We really think we have the ability to make a big impact in this World Cup."

With a squad including other notable Super League figures such as Hansen's Wigan team-mate George Carmont, the Leeds prop Kylie Leuluai, Bradford's David Solomona and Leeds's Ali Lauitiiti, Samoa fancy their chances of coming through what is effectively a six-team qualifying tournament to join Australia, New Zealand and England in the semi-finals.

But they will need to hit the ground running against a Tonga team who should be more cohesive, albeit not as fresh, after beating Ireland 22-20 in the thriller in Parramatta on Monday. Not that the build-up to tomorrow's game has contained many references to rugby. It is the grudge between the nations which has captured the imagination, encouraged by provocative comments from the two camps.

Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece claiming that the teams had "lost interest in sticking it to each other verbally" but in the rival Daily Telegraph the Tonga coach, Jim Dymock, insisted that "Tonga and Samoa have always hated each other with a passion. It will be do or die. Both sides will rip in. We once ruled their country". Hansen may be in for quite a night.